New Orleans' Police Dept. Should Stop Shifting Responsibility

This wonderful editorial, from the T-P, needs to be preserve for future reference.

EDITORIAL: A more peaceful future
Sunday, January 06, 2008

New Orleanians understand very well the historic failings of the city's public schools, the scourge of the drug trade and the hardship of poverty.

Residents have watched for more than a decade as murderers got younger and some neighborhoods became killing zones for drug lords.

What they need to hear from the New Orleans Police Department is what it plans to do about violence in the city. Instead, Deputy Chief Marlon Defillo talked New Year's Eve about the obstacles presented by social ills. The problem "is far greater than the Police Department or the criminal justice system," he said.

That is true, but it is not a sufficient explanation for the city's high murder rate. Other cities face the same societal problems, but all of them reported fewer murders per capita than New Orleans did in 2007. The murder rates in Chicago and New York are the lowest they have been in years. Even historically violent cities like Detroit, Baltimore and Birmingham had a much lower per capita murder rate than New Orleans did last year.

At least some of the credit must go to the police in those cities. The same ought to be true here.

Let's agree that the crime rate is not the fault of any one agency or person. But the Police Department has a vital role in reducing crime no matter what the difficulties may be.
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To the New Orleans Police Force: Please do your job.